Etch a Sketch is nothing new

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When an aide to GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney told CNN that a candidate can “hit a reset button for the fall campaign” when it comes to realigning positions to appeal to a broader span of the electorate, he seemed to put his foot in his mouth.

“Everything changes,” Eric Fehrnstrom went on. “It’s almost like an Etch a Sketch. You can kind of shake it up and restart all over again.”

Naturally, the political press glommed onto that like 2 year olds grab lollipops, even though the candidate himself didn’t say it. In these days of struggling for something to put into a story, or use in a campaign, anything is fodder.

Unfortunately, CNN and others neglected to report that what Fehrnstrom said has been true for a long time. Politicians change their minds quite a lot.

If you need proof of that, consider President Obama’s change of mind about the Keystone XL oil pipeline, which would bring oil from Canada to Cushing, Okla. In January, Obama turned the plan down. That meant the jobs which would have resulted from pipeline construction and the extra, non-Arab energy availability had been nixed.

He is still cleaning himself off from the oil spill of criticism that resulted from that decision, which by all accounts was made to appease anti-oil liberals, who believe the oil, likely from tar sands in Alberta, would hasten climate change.

But, now, Obama’s all for the pipeline, and he went to Cushing to wave at cameras and say so.

President George W. Bush, who ran as a conservative, turned into a borrow-and-spend president when he felt the need was there.

President Clinton, who promised national medical care in his first term, couldn’t run away from it fast enough when the opposition to it started to pile up.